


Loss Ficlet: Toys

by missclairebelle



Series: Loss (In Chronological Order) [37]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, NSFW, Oral Sex, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 01:58:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19802392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missclairebelle/pseuds/missclairebelle
Summary: An invitation to a raunchy girls' night out leads to a some steamy married-Frasers banter, a lesson about what happens at a sex-toy party, an ode to Jamie's bedroom skills in the form of a sonnet, and a really unfortunate bedhead situation for Claire.





	Loss Ficlet: Toys

**Author's Note:**

> In writing my July Summer of Smut fic, I realized that the first half should be a standalone story. So consider this the on ramp to my July Summer of Smut fic that will post two weekends from now. Many thanks to @balfeheughlywed, @desperationandgin, and @smashing-teacups for the read through and helpful comments.
> 
> ;NSFW af - this is more graphic than my usual smutty fare; you’ve been warned.

##  **LOSS FICLET (MODERN AU)  
** **TOYS  
****JULY 2019**

Barefoot in the kitchen before work one Saturday morning, I let roar my life’s first true _guffaw_.

It was a sound that unleashed from me with the kickback of an unruly firehose, unrestrained and powerful, as I sipped a green smoothie and opened our mail.

At first glance, the artisanal summons ( _on vellum and bounded by lace, hand-lettered, sealed with a ring of magenta wax, and stamped with what Geillis apparently considered to be her family crest_ ) was reminiscent of a serious gathering. And after I read it, said invitation was covered in an organic green smoothie ( _a Jamie Fraser original with kale, celery, and enough apple juice that I would not whine about it tasting like our lawn_ ).

The lovely presentation was exquisitely crafted in a way I realized later was meant to be deceptive. The return address alone would have tipped off even the most bumbling of television primetime detectives that the delicate filigree was no more than a ruse to conceal what filth dwelled inside:

_To celebrate the happy occasion of her divorce from Greg Duncan (an utter arsehole), Geillis Edgars (a right catch of a hen, being of healthy/sound mind & perky breasts, with the freedom of her own name having been returned) cordially invites you to an adult sleepover. Share in a night of manicures, pedicures, facials, cocktails, nibbles, and sex toys with a representative of Smitten Britain Kittens. The henhole’s free of the cock now, and a hen’ll need some help. Regrets only!_

“Are ye okay?” Jamie asked as I gripped the edge of the counter to steady myself. Ever one to find joy in me being absolutely ridiculous, his eyes twinkled as my fit of laughter began to die. “What’s so funny?”

“Geillis.” I shook my head, tears burning my eyelids and threatening to vandalize the careful masterpiece of my under-eye mascara. “She’s gone _fully_ mental on me, Jamie.”

“What is it?” he asked suspiciously, stretching an arm across his chest ( _it was a particularly useless pre-workout ritual he claimed was important to limber him up; however, I did not protest – it gave me a chance to ogle my husband even if it offered next to no benefit to his physique and workout readiness_ ).

“Geillis is having a party,” I reported as I mopped the green smoothie off the front of my teal scrubs, wondering if I could get away without changing my top. “A _sleepover_ of… sorts.”

He furrowed a brow, falling out of the stretch and bouncing up onto his toes as he shook out his hands. “I dinna ken why ye’d think it funny that yer friend’s invited ye to a wee party.”

Quirking an eyebrow, I passed him the invitation and watched as a flustered blush rushed up his throat, like his blood itself was increasingly embarrassed as he read each passing word. He rubbed his ear lobe, breathed a gentle little “ _oh_.”

“Oh,” I teased as I took back the invitation and set it on the counter.

With blush-hot lips, he kissed me on the cheek and left for the gym without another mention of Geillis’s party. I departed for work with scrubs scented like eau-de-kale.

For the next fourteen days, the invitation lived next to the tea kettle as a paper-thin elephant in the kitchen.

Then, on the day of said party, my husband was deep in sulk mode. He was perched like a bird of prey on the edge of a cliff ( _our bed_ ) surveying the goings-on of his hunting ground ( _watching as I readied myself to go to Geillis’s flat_ ). I was about to tease that he looked the definition of _hawkish_ when he asked, “What exactly happens at one of these parties?”

It was a question I suspected had been lingering at the back of his mind since he’d first blanched and then blushed at the invitation. And from his quite purposeful attempts to not even catch a stray glance at the thing while brewing our morning tea, the party had piqued his curiosity.

I watched him in the mirror above our dresser as I attempted to tame the particularly difficult thatch of curls that resided at the back of my neck with a straightening iron. “Oh you know, it’s probably what you expect,” I answered, being purposefully non-committal and raising a single eyebrow. I wanted to get a rise out of him, to see his chest puff out a bit, to see his high cheeks or perhaps the tips of his ears go pink.

From his impassive expression I knew that my answer had been insufficient to sate his curiosity, but it had been perfectly adequate to sate my need to tease.

“Enlighten me,” he deadpanned, his hand tapping a rhythm against his thigh and ears going rosy. “What does a _sex toy_ party involve?”

“Are you sure you _want_ to know?” I asked, setting my brush and iron onto the dresser and turning to him.

 _God, the man could make me feel beautiful_ , even when certain to look well and truly mad ( _primed to be sectioned with my half a head of pin-straight hair and half a head of frizzy curls_ ). He looked so _intent_ , centered on me and me alone. The answer to my question was “ _yes_.”

So I answered.

“We’ll probably taste test some water-based lubricants once we’re a few bottles of wine into things, hold various vibrating things–”

“– _such as_?”

“– _such as_ vibrators, cock rings–”

“–oh God–” he started, making the kind of face that he typically held in reserve for some unsavory task ( _like the archaeological dig into the unkempt refrigerator drawer reserved for the easily-grabbable foods that I took to work for lunch_ ).

“Why the ‘ _oh god_ ’?” I asked, rolling my eyes . “It isn’t like you don’t know what’s in my nightstand.”

“Aye, ye’ll recall I’ve bought a fair few… _things_ in that nightstand–”

“– _toys_ , Jamie–”

“–but… _cock rings_?”

I fought to stay neutral, asking, “Why the face, soldier? Cock rings make your erection last longer and get you harder.”

“I dinna need a ‘ _cock ring_ ,’” he muttered, mimicking my accent and returning the eye roll with a vigor that made me snicker.

“Did I _say_ that you _need_ a ‘ _cock ring_ ’?” I grumbled in my deepest, most affected mimicry of _his_ accent ( _turnabout is fair game, after all_ ).

He squinted, the percussion section of his finger orchestra stretching and then picking up on his thigh in a way that said he felt _just a little_ off kilter with the subject of our afternoon conversation. “Ye used the words ‘ _your_ ’ and ‘ _you_.’”

“And?”

“Ye’ve thus implied that ye have _complaints_ , Sassenach.”

“Have I _ever_ complained about your erection?”

At that, he looked down at his gym shorts in a way that practically begged me to launch into an academic exercise about _men_ and the unnecessary attention the entire sex paid to their genitals. ( _It was not like he periodically inspected his toenails or hipbone to ensure that it was still there._ ) But my no doubt Noble-prize-worthy qualitative study on my _husband’s_ particular interest in his junk was thwarted because Jamie’s voice had lifted, and his eyes brightened when he answered, “No, ye havena lodged any complaints ‘bout my erection.”

“I have _not_ ,” I confirmed austerely, “you and your cock keep me in _quite_ good spirits.”

His lip fought to twitch as he held in a laugh.

I laughed for the two of us, teasing, “Don’t you _dare_ smile. You’re deep in your _cantankerous_ phase, and you wouldn’t want me to think maintaining your cock’s good standing ranks anywhere less than among your most serious affairs.”

I licked my lips as he resumed tapping, smiled a little for myself, and relished the slight turn to his brow that indicated confusion ( _of course he couldn’t read my mind, but I was reveling still in how utterly predictable he could be about some things_ ).

“ _Anyway_ ,” he urged.

“ _Anyway_ ,” I obliged, “there’ll be the showing of dildos in all colors of the flesh rainbow and the real rainbow, various sizes, like some sort of dick parade–”

“–a dick parade? Ye’re filthy today, Sassenach–” ( _an interruption that I handily ignored_ )

“–and everyone will talk about how none of them have got anything on their man–”

“–that’s _sweet_ , Sassenach–” ( _another prime opportunity to ignore him_ )

“– _or_ that, you know, that said man needs a little extra help–”

Jamie snorted ( _indignant and more than a little proud_ ), but nonetheless glanced down at himself _again_ ( _his face had a fleeting look of relief when he realized the slight bulge to the left of center was intact_ ). Instead of asking if he thought I periodically checked to ensure my vulva was present and accounted for, I returned his snort through a plume of laughter, and took a step towards him.

As I slipped a hand into his curls, I cocked a hip out to the side. “In my estimation, my lad, you’re just fine–”

“– _fine_?” he gasped with the faux exasperation of a breathless ingenue, bringing his hands to rest on my hips.

“ _Better_ than fine, even.”

( _It was true_.)

I ran my fingers down through his hair ( _offering a sympathetic wince when he grunted as they raked through a particularly difficult tangle and emerged victorious_ ), down the slope of his shoulders, and molded them to the familiar bulge of his biceps. “You’re perfectly adequate in bed.”

He made a low, disgruntled kind of sound in his chest before muttering, “Ye’re damning me, and my cock, wi’ faint praise, ye towel-and-brasierre-clad poet.”

“Do you want me to write a _sonnet_ about your bonnie cock?”

“No, and ye ken ye’re just being a snot now,” he grumbled, his hands carefully fisting terry cloth, but not enough to bare me to him.

“O, my husband’s cock, ‘tis hard as a rock–

in rain or shine, he makes it mine, all mine–”

“ _Snot_.” The accusation was repeated with his lips exhaling a full set of lungs’ worth of air into the towel over my abdomen and his fingers working carefully around the knot in my towel.

Batting my eyelashes, I breathily confessed, “I couldn’t _possibly_ know what you mean, James Fraser.”

 _Oh, his face was a mess of contradiction – unabashed sexiness, sweetness, openness, innocence, confusion, love, and the mildest of frustration at my teasing_ ( _my most favorite mix_ ) _._ “Ye’re leavin’ me so ye can play wi’ sex toys, and ye _tease me_ so horribly, _a nighean_.”

Cooing, I ran my hands over his chest before bringing them around the back of his neck. I held my breath, counted to two, and tried to sound unaffected as his fingers moved to push the bottom of my towel _up, up, up_ to the expansive plains of my upper thighs, just below the heat that was starting to build between my legs. The knot gave, and I stood before him in a nude bra and knickers.

Swallowing, I attempted to keep my end of the banter up for just a short while more, knowing precisely his intention when his tongue darted out to lick his lips. “David’s out of town with the kids, which means you’ll go over to John’s, and the two of you will likely sit on his couch playing video games until you’ve gone fully stupid with beer.”

“Ye’ve such a _negative_ perspective on my pastimes.”

“Really? Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Mostly we’ll go for a run, get takeaway Indian, and pine over our missing loves.”

My responsive cackle (“ _I’ll bet_ ”) was broken by a giggle as he kissed one hipbone, lifted the edge of the towel _well_ above my thighs.

“I will miss ye, though, Sassenach. Even if it’s only a night.” The swell of my heart, a slight pang of guilt niggling in my mind, was interrupted by what he said next. “My bonnie wee cock’ll miss ye, too, but we’ll take solace in the fact that ye’ve now promised to write it a sonnet.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’ll be quite distraught diving headlong into your bromance with John.”

“I’ll think of ye fondly,” he said wistfully, slipping a finger under the strap of my bra and tracing it down over the swell of one breast.

As surreptitiously as possible, I glanced down at my wristwatch.

I would need to call a car in precisely one hour and fifteen minutes.

I did the mental math, kissed my husband on the crown, and slid to my knees.

“Did ye really just check the time?” he asked, thumbing the front clasp of my bra before flicking it open lazily. Shrugging off the fabric and watching his hand spread wide across one breast, I went for the waistband of his shorts.

“I’m nothing if not punctual.”

He hummed noncommittally, unconvinced ( _we both knew it was a lie_ ).

I looked up at him through the fan of my eyelashes, smiled, and said, “I think we can make sure you make it until Sunday, but you need to keep your hands out of the part of my hair that I’ve already straightened.”

Grumbling something that sounded vaguely affirmative and decidedly Gaelic, he cupped my cheek as I rolled his gym shorts down. I gave my palm and fingers a lick before taking him gently into my hand. He was half hard, pulsing. A quiet, determined burn of blush pinked my cheeks, made me feel powerful.

His voice was low as his thumb traced a cheekbone. “Ye dinna have to.”

“You know that I don’t do things that I don’t want to do,” I reminded him gently, kissing the tensed muscle in his inner thigh. I drew my hand up, introducing my tongue to the hot underside of the tip of him only for a moment. “And I _guess_ I’m doing this under the assumption that it’s _quid pro quo_. You’ll–”

“Aye,” he breathily interrupted, nodding vigorously enough that his length bobbed free of my loose grasp. I kissed him once to the left of his navel, twice on the thatch of bristly hair that lined the trail to the hardening flesh between his legs, and then once on each thigh. His promise to leave my hair alone was long forgotten by the time he confirmed, “I’ll return the favor, aye.”

“Well, let’s begin,” I said with a nod, making peace with the fact that my hair would need to be retamed.

And with the sound that came from him – mix of Gaelic (“ _ifrinn_ ”) and English ( _a well-placed, hissed series of four-letter words_ ) – I ceased to care, adjusting my hold and tracing the head of his cock along the seam of my lips before allowing him to sink into my mouth. He went stormy as he grew, hardened against my tongue.

A strangled sigh spawned a moan ending with my name, a curse, a prayer.

“ _A nighean_ …” he groaned, the length of his broad fingers curving against my scalp, “…look at me.”

I did, earning wings as he shook his head, groaned, tipped his head back as though he couldn’t bear me obliging his request.

Sucking cock always struck me as some sort of twisted exercise in adult ventriloquism. The image made me chuckle ( _as best as I could with my mouth full_ ) as I catalogued the myriad efforts I was undertaking to transform my husband into a sighing, groaning, useless puddle.

I swirled my tongue.

Drew him further into my mouth.

Traced the heavy outline of him with gentle fingertips, and made what I hoped were velvety, pleasurable little noises as he trembled ( _thankfully he maintained a hold on the thin strand of dignity that prevented him from bucking up into my throat_ ).

Inhaling what I hoped would be the strength not to vomit, I closed over him until he touched the back of my throat and quickly pulled back, my fingers twisting and stroking his saliva-covered flesh.

His fingers flexed against my scalp, and he allowed himself only the quivering hint of a shallow thrust. As I drew him back into my mouth, his vocabulary devolved ( _featuring “fuck” and “Jesus Christ” in starring roles, along with a rarely-slurred Gaelic rendition of my Christian name_ ), creating a melodious accompaniment to my efforts.

With a gentle suck, I pulled back to sit on my haunches and batted at the viscous string of slobber that trailed from my lips to the head of his cock. Trying my best to sound nonplussed and bland, I remarked, “I left a lip gloss ring.”

Some sound combining _uh-huh and mmmhmm_ came from him as I drew my fingers over him a few times. His eyes became bonded to me, his lips parting as though to say something, but then closed as though he thought better of it.

“What?” I asked, but he simply shook his head and started to breathe through his mouth.

Rejuvenated by a few deep breaths, I renewed the business of lazily teasing him with my mouth.

_Suck. Swirl. Stroke. Stop. Again. Once more._

It was with little warning that he directed me to “ _lose the knickers_ ” in a low growl. As he said it, he pushed gently at my shoulder and leaned just enough that he popped free from my mouth with a wet smack. “I need to taste ye.”

At that, my mouth became a useless tool in the continuation of our then-current activities. Standing on shaky, freshly-birthed fawn legs, I slipped my flesh-colored thong down until it rested at my feet.

For a moment I wondered if he was going to make good on the promise, but then he grabbed me by the hips and pulled me back with him onto the bed. In one smooth movement, he was on his back with me laid out across him, his cock damp and rigid between my legs.

“Up,” he said with a tone that I assumed he meant me not to question.

“Up?” I inquired dumbly as his hand kneaded one buttock.

“On my face.”

In our years together, _this_ request was a rarity in our sexual repertoire. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever been sober when we had done it ( _one of the few times I had let him partake involved a whisky tasting where the hors d’voeuers ran out early, a comped hotel room, and a Jamie so assertive about tasting me “no, like_ this _” as he situated himself below me that I had not realized what was about to happen until his nose was nudging me encouragingly_ ), and the thought of it alone was enough to paint me with blush from breast to cheeks.

“I’ll smother you,” I mumbled dumbly as his hands became urgent, insistent, needy on my arse and hips.

He cracked a predatory, wolfish smile. “I rate the danger of _that_ as being quite low.”

In an attempt to divert his attention, I moved my hips to slip myself along his length, to tease a warm, wet burrow for him, but my efforts were aborted as he took a firmer hold of my hips. “I’ll use a frantic hand gesture if I’m in danger of drownin’ in ye, Sassenach.”

If reckless promise had a name, it would be Jamie Fraser. If reckless promise had a face, it would be my husband’s, nodding encouragement with a hopeful look.

When he whispered, “ _please, I want to, Claire_ ,” I felt the bobbing buoy of my resistance slip underwater in the swelling tide of a stormy sea.

As I moved (“ _up_ ”), I forgot the smooth pursuit of my watch’s second hand towards the time of my departure. He held his breath as I rose to the occasion, my knees carefully positioned on either side of his head.

He touched me ( _spreading, probing_ ).

He hummed before sealing his mouth over me so thoroughly that I saw stars and grabbed for the headboard.

And when his tongue made its first exploratory flick, and he continued his keyless tune with his lips firmly connected to me, I bellowed the first six syllables of his Christian name like some sort of nineteenth century railway conductor.

Hands kneading two handfuls of my ass, he treated this act ( _this rare act_ ) like it was my basic human right. With a vigor that made me cinch my eyes shut and groan, he proceeded to do his damnedest to make me forget my initial reticence to climb atop his face.

The technicolor premonition of suffocating my husband with thighs and ass, replaced by a blinding pleasure and a readily-forgotten promise to myself not to turn my nose up at this next time it was offered.

My vision bent. I gripped the headboard tighter, my forehead falling forward to rest on the wall with a sweaty _thwap_.

It was as if he was making us eternal, drawing our souls into the nonexistent space between us.

When I came ( _bursting and pulsing, gasping his name from the back of my throat – a sound that was not breathy and barely made it past the ridge of my teeth_ ), he held me down, damning me to remain closer despite my efforts to _rise rise rise up up and away_.

As I came down off the blade of my pleasure, my fingers loosening and my thighs slackening, he took hold of my hips, lifted, and had flipped me under him before I knew what was happening. I was melted beneath him, floating in the pool of our duvet with limbs like taffy.

I reached up to touch his cheek.

“Yer pupils are _huge_.” His observation was groaned, his hand curving along my cheek ( _sealing in the dampness of sweat and tears and the warmth of arousal_ ) and his thumb carefully pressing into my lower lip ( _drawing it down, preparing my mouth to be kissed_ ). “What do ye want now? Do ye need to consult yer wee wristwatch again?”

The verdant peak of my orgasm still green in my mouth, I shook my head, whimpered a plea for him to make love to me, to “ _make me come again, Jamie, please_.”

The universe became milky as he settled between my legs.

A well of molten tears pricked behind my eyelids as I felt the slight press of his cock, lava surging into my veins and filling my lungs and flooding my heart. With his body a shelter over me, I was not above begging, so I whispered, “ _Please_. Please. _Please_.”

When he pressed forward, my legs fell further apart of their own volition and he finally kissed me. I arched, becoming phosphorescent ( _a firefly flitting aimlessly in a relentlessly unknowable world_ ) as he moved inside of me, mumbled Gaelic endearments into the slick space behind my ear. He rested his weight on me, took one hand, and wove our fingers together, submerging our newly-joined hand deep into the ocean of our duvet ( _failing to push it back the oversight of our oppressive need to soak up from one another all the need_ ).

This time, it was my vocabulary that devolved as my free hand curled around his hip: _oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, uhhuh_.

He saved his expletives and my name for pulling back (“ _fuck, Claire_ ”) _mostly_ and his Gaelic for sinking forward (“ _a dhia_ ”).

His teeth sank into my lower lip, scraped down my chin. A warm exhalation soothed the skin as he pressed nearer, deeper, harder. Naked and trembling, luminous with sweat and sealed together in the late afternoon, I whimpered.

“Do that again,” he whispered in my ear. “Make that sound again.”

Unable to make _any_ sound on command ( _a fact with which he was well acquainted_ ), I made _another_ sound, and he groaned approval.

Lazily, my hand on his hip migrated between us, turned palm-up against his stomach, just below his navel. “I feel you everywhere when you’re inside me,” I mumbled, kissing him again and touching my own stomach. I felt him there, buried inside of me, thrusting with the unhurried pleasure of a man who has the luxury of knowing that he has an entire _lifetime_ to make love to a particular woman.

“ _Oh Christ, a nighean_ ,” he whispered when my touch migrated further south to feel the impossibly hard intrusion of him beneath my fingers, slick and needy as he plunged into me again and again.

His stroke deepened, faltered, and I whimpered. “Legs.”

With only the noun, I knew.

I tilted my pelvis and became a vine around his hips, groaning as he plunged forward _again and again and again_. I was beginning to spiral, my head tipping back as though the position would let me prolong this feeling of standing on the precipice ( _building and building northward, an aching throb, the sensation that was equally split between needing it to end at last and needing it to go on forever_ ). He paused for a moment, sank his teeth into the soft rise of flesh from my shoulder to my throat, licked a line to the underside of his chin, and started again.

The buzz was quiet under his gasps, and it made me laugh for only a moment before it was on me.

Taking advantage of my closed eyes, he had somehow gone into the nightstand without me realizing what he was up to.

“Come for me,” he mumbled, the toy just above my most sensitive spot ( _the place chosen by a careful lover, one who knew anything more just then would be too much_ ).

I did, then, my eyes open and mouth agape.

I didn’t have to fight the overdramatic urge to scream because no sound would come out. I sank fingernails into his arse, scraped them down his back, clawed and begged when I could make sound again. He thrust through the final ripples that ran from my belly to my chest and down my spine like a skipping stone, burying himself as deep as possible, stilling before spilling himself. As he panted my name, the final aftershocks of his own orgasm pulsing through a few shallow thrusts, my touch became soothing.

A delicate trail of my fingertips up the gnarled flesh of his spine, a hand around the back of his neck, lips on his throat as he collapsed forward ( _sweaty, spent_ ).

After a time, he mumbled, “Ye’re so beautiful when ye’re coming.”

“I’d say that you’re beautiful when you come, too, but…”

He slipped free and of me and I lost my train of thought as my legs turned to the side, thighs wrenching shut in an attempt not to create a mess.

“But?”

“I couldn’t see _anything_ after that second orgasm.”

He chuckled, kissed the tip of my nose. “Should ye put yer legs up… tilt yer hips… or… _something_?”

This time, I felt myself blush, knowing what he was asking.

 _Old wive’s tales mostly_ , but I couldn’t bring myself to tease him about it. So instead, I nodded, felt the threat of my heart exploding as he situated a pillow near the headboard and helped tuck it under my hips. He joined me in my useless _baby-making_ position for posterity’s sake, I suppose, and I tilted my head to the side. In tandem, we carefully shifted, our sides molded together, my legs crossed at the ankles, and my feet on the headboard.

He carefully brought his own feet up onto the headboard, smiling (a _dopey_ , _besotted kind of grin_ ). I felt myself swell inside, feeling well and truly _enough_ for him in that moment. His look meant the sun set and the moon rose on me. Whether I deserved it or not, I was _his_ for better or worse.

When he shifted nearer, I sighed and closed my eyes. He kissed the tips of each of my fingers, held a hand over my belly. “I love ye, my Sassenach.”

“I love you, too.”

I did not feel the post-coital glow pull me under into a placid, opaque sleep, but I woke some short while later ( _aching and heavy_ ) to the press of Jamie’s lips on my shoulder and the distant patter of the running shower.

“Ye should get ready for yer wee party,” he whispered, smoothing a hand down my body ( _between my breasts, to the lower part of my stomach, over my thighs_ ). “And I’m sorry to say, I utterly wrecked yer hair.”

“I’m sure it looks horrible – you and your handsiness, then screwing me on my back until I was screaming.”

“Dinna hold it against me.”

Indignantly, I snorted, taking his hand as he helped me up. “I will. Hold it against you that is.”

“I ken,” he confirmed, giving me a chaste kiss on the mouth and a swat on the behind. “Now go. Shower. Ye canna go to yer sex toy party smelling like sex.”

Thirty minutes later, we separated for the night. I was on my way across town with curly hair and no makeup, feeling deeply content, and Jamie was on his way to John’s on the opposite end of Edinburgh. Just as I reached Geillis’s neighborhood, I dug into my purse ( _intent on sending my husband one final text to wish him a good night before things went radio silent for my girls’ night_ ) when I felt it.

The invitation.

I fished it out from the bottom of my handbag, brows knit together and not remembering putting it into the bag.

Clipped to the front of it was a handwritten note ( _small, blocky, capital letters – unmistakably Jamie’s penmanship_ ) and three crisp fifty-pound notes. The note read:

_Buy yourself something good at the party._

_All my love,_

_J._


End file.
